Fat, unseemly men playing gynecologist, former candidates plagiarizing, and now the anti-Sandlin ads

South Dakota War College, in its unfaltering efforts to make churlishness the state characteristic, promoted an anti-Herseth Sandlin ad whining over the fact that Ms. Herseth Sandlin made a stop in Aberdeen to see what she could do about the flooding of the James River Valley and shortly after went to Greenland to investigate global warming and the use of geo-thermal energy.

South Dakota War College, whose commenters are a study in dementia, says the ad is playing in South Dakota markets. The problem is that the ad does not identify its sponsors. It gives a phone number which happens to be Herseth Sandlin's Aberdeen field office number. And it says go to www.CommonSenseSouthDakota, which happens to be the web page started by Steve Hildebrand, Sen. Daschle's former campaign manager. The web page has no mention of Rep. Herseth Sandlin.

We strongly suspect this is the work of the Thune camp. It sounds like the dishonest, peevish malevolence that is the established character of that man and his minions. After all, the stuff about Tom Daschle's "palatial" residence in South Dakota got the churls stirred up, so why shouldn't this kind of petty dishonesty work on Stephanie?

The cowardice of the presentation is what really stands out. We wonder if there are any laws whereby South Dakota can be declared a moral disaster area. Oh well, even if there are, what can be done about people bereft of the basic decencies? So, the blogosphere joins the phony gynecologists and the plagiarists and brings South Dakota politics a few notches lower.